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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22474939">Soft</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxlee/pseuds/noxlee'>noxlee</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Coda, Episode: s15e10 The Heroes' Journey, Established Relationship, M/M, mediocre sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 11:00:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,743</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22474939</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxlee/pseuds/noxlee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean discovers that his new "normal" extends to his sex life as well.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>140</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Soft</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Many thanks to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/treefrogie84/works">frogie</a> and <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainhaterade/profile">captainhaterade</a> for all your work to see through my brain fog and clunky prose to find better words. And to wordcluster9 for the reassurance :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Castiel gets home to the bunker late, but Dean’s still up, nursing two fingers of whiskey. Turns out his <em> normal </em>body can’t handle liquor quite as well, so he had to slow down hours ago to make sure he could stay awake until Cas got home. </p>
<p>He hears the door as soon as it opens, and Cas’s steps as he descends.</p>
<p>“Any luck in Heaven?” Dean asks as Cas makes a beeline to him. Cas looks exhausted, his shoulders hunched and weary, so Dean’s pretty sure he knows the answer.</p>
<p>“No, it was a wasted trip,” Cas confirms. “I got your messages. So you’re… ‘normal’ now?”</p>
<p>Dean can’t even find it in himself to smile at the air quotes. He downs the last dregs of his drink. </p>
<p>“Where’s Sam?” Cas asks, looking around the darkened library.</p>
<p>“Sam,” Dean drawls, “went to sleep. After his laptop got a virus, and the wifi went down, and he nearly electrocuted himself trying to fix the modem, he called it quits on today and turned in.”</p>
<p>“But you’re still up?”</p>
<p>“Waiting for you.” </p>
<p>Dean trips over the chair leg when he stands up and Cas catches his elbow. He ignores the way the wrinkles between Cas’s eyes etch themselves deeper in concern— but he doesn’t fight it when Cas keeps holding on, leaning into Cas’s warmth as they make their way down the hall.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dean barely gets the door to his room shut before he’s shoving Cas against the wall and rutting against him.</p>
<p>“Dean,” Cas rumbles, his voice dropping impossibly lower in that way that does things to Dean. </p>
<p>Fuck, he’s missed this. </p>
<p>Their clothes come off, Dean’s less suavely than he’d have liked. Whiskey and exhaustion have made all his movements a little clumsy and he gets his foot stuck inside his pants leg, then nearly loses his balance trying to pull off a sock. </p>
<p>Again, Cas grabs his arm to steady him. He gently pries Dean’s hands away from where he’s yanking at Cas’s tie in frustration; the knot keeps getting tighter and tighter, unyielding no matter how many times Dean’s done this before and been smooth as fuck about it. </p>
<p>“Dean?” His thumbs stroke over Dean’s hands where he holds them and Dean lets his head fall to Cas’s shoulder with a muffled groan.</p>
<p>“I’m fine, Cas,” he mumbles. </p>
<p>“Maybe we should—” </p>
<p>“Cas, please.” Dean forces himself to look at Cas, to let Cas see him. He’s ready to vibrate out of his skin with how badly he needs this—needs Cas—needs something that’s just them right now. “Just… please.”</p>
<p>Cas concedes and walks him back until his knees hit the edge of his bed. He sinks down, and pulls Cas down to meet him. Bared to one another, Cas settles into the space between his legs and presses soft nips to the inside of his knees. </p>
<p>Dean’s stomach emits a loud gurgle and Cas looks up, startled. </p>
<p>“Grilled cheese,” Dean admits apologetically. </p>
<p>Cas looks skeptical but reaches for the top drawer of the nightstand. He fumbles around blindly for a few moments feeling for the lube before coming up empty handed and staring at Dean in confusion. </p>
<p>“It was there, I swear,” Dean says. Had he taken it out? He’d packed some in his bag on the last hunt they were gone for and—“oh shit, I left my bag in the trunk.”</p>
<p>“Probably just as well. Want to switch?”</p>
<p>Dean shrugs and starts to sit up, but Cas plants a firm hand on his chest and shoves him back down. He sighs happily as Cas resumes his ministrations, kissing his way down Dean’s chest and stomach, and further down the line of his hips. </p>
<p>He’s aching by the time Cas’s tongue laps softly at the head of his cock. Soft, teasing licks that seem to go on forever before Cas takes pity on him and draws the head fully into his mouth and sucks. Without meaning to, Dean’s hips jerk up and Cas groans happily around him, taking him deeper. Dean tangles one hand in the sheets and the other in Cas’s hair as Cas finds his rhythm. </p>
<p>It’s never been anything less than incredible with Cas. Because it’s <em> Cas </em>. Tonight is no different and Dean is so turned on he could cry. And yet…</p>
<p>Cas pulls off with a soft pop and stares. </p>
<p>Dean stares.</p>
<p>His cock flops to one side uselessly, still only half-hard despite Cas’s best efforts. </p>
<p>Dean can feel his face burning and he squeezes his eyes shut, willing himself to focus. He grabs his own cock in hand and strokes furiously, coaxing his erection into hardness. </p>
<p>He gets there, briefly. But loses it again before Cas can fully settle in his lap, nowhere near as hard as he needs to be. As he should be. Arousal thrums in him, but abstractly, a dull ache, ghosting around the edges and out of reach. </p>
<p>“Dean,” Cas says as he climbs off.</p>
<p>“No, no,” Dean insists, tugging at Cas with one arm and his cock with the other. “It’s fine, I just gotta focus.”</p>
<p>“Dean,” Cas says again, more seriously, and Dean groans and gives up, letting out a long, defeated sigh of frustration. He pulls the blanket over himself and covers his face with his hands. His face is still burning and he can feel the hot sting of tears threatening to spill. </p>
<p>Cas lays down next to him and nudges his foot against Dean’s.</p>
<p>“Dean, you’re tired,” Cas says. “And stressed, beyond what most humans could endure. And a little drunk. And what, forty now? This is perfectly normal and nothing to be ashamed of.”</p>
<p>Dean snorts. “This whole day has fucking sucked. It’s not enough that Chuck snapped his fingers and stripped away everything that makes me, me. Now he’s a damn cockblock on top of everything else? You and I—” Dean gestures between them “—This. Us. We’re just ordinary now too, are we?”</p>
<p>He clamps his mouth shut, and glares at the ceiling. </p>
<p>Cas says, very quietly, “You’ve never been ordinary to me.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>They’re silent for a long time before Dean sighs again. </p>
<p>“Did you know I had cavities?”</p>
<p>“Really?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, seventeen of them. Garth fixed me up. Knocked me right out with some kind of laughing gas and went to town.”</p>
<p>“What was that like?”</p>
<p>“Trippy as hell, man. I was, uh, tap dancing. In the bunker. In a white tux and dancing with a—god, with a lamp, I think?”</p>
<p>“I’m sure you were a very good dancer.”</p>
<p>“Don’t patronize me. Of course I was. I was damn incredible.” Cas turns his head to stare at him with soft eyes and a smile he’s trying to bite down on. “Screw you, I could be a good dancer, you know.”</p>
<p>“I do.”</p>
<p>“I uh… I said some stuff, too.”</p>
<p>“Hmm?”</p>
<p>“I think. I’m not sure. I think, maybe, I told Garth that I, uh... I love you.”</p>
<p>“You… told Garth you love him?”</p>
<p>“No, idiot. I told him I love <em> you </em>. Cas is so great, I love Cas. Blah blah, Cas, Cas, Caaaaas.” </p>
<p>Cas quirks another small smile. “And what did Garth say?”</p>
<p>Dean coughs. “He said, ‘I know.’ Fucker. Granted, he was wearing a tux, too, and had just finished a pretty impressive tap routine himself, so who even knows. Maybe I imagined the whole thing. And when I was finally coherent again, I was too scared to ask but he smiled at me in that fucking Garth way, you know?”</p>
<p>“He’s a very insightful soul. Nonjudgmental, too,” Cas adds. </p>
<p>“Hey, did you know? He named a kid after you.”</p>
<p>Cas sits up at that. “You’re kidding.”</p>
<p>“I shit you not.”</p>
<p>“I can’t believe he was serious about that,” Cas laughs and Dean squints at him in suspicion. </p>
<p>“I went back for him after the—well, uh. After the Michael thing. I remembered that we’d locked him in the trunk and I let him out once I was sure he’d shifted back to himself. He was so grateful he swore he was naming his next child after me. I assumed it was just a figure of speech.”</p>
<p>“Nope. Twin boys, actually. The other one is named Sam.”</p>
<p>“Sam and Cas. Cute.”</p>
<p>“Shut up.”</p>
<p>“Maybe they’ll name their next child after you, Dean. Or a pet. A cute little kitten named Dean.”</p>
<p>“I mean it, shut up.”</p>
<p>Cas sighs and settles back into the pillows.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So, what now?” Cas says eventually.</p>
<p>“I don’t know.” And Dean really doesn’t know, doesn’t have a clue. “We’re not exactly ready to take on God, not in this state. Weren’t even sure we could, before, but now… now we’re just… nobodies. </p>
<p>“Dean.” Cas sits up on one elbow and scowls at him. </p>
<p>“Everything we’ve ever done, everything we are, is because Chuck wrote it that way. It’s worse than I thought, Cas. I can’t even pick a damn lock, anymore. I—I’m not even sure I know who I am.”</p>
<p>Dean stares resolutely at the ceiling, trying to act calmer than he feels. </p>
<p>“Dean,” Cas says finally. “Could you look at me for a moment?”</p>
<p>Dean groans, but turns to face him.</p>
<p>“I want you to know that even if you’re unsure right now, I know <em> exactly </em> who you are. And it has nothing to do with your lockpicking skills. Or your performance in bed, or the way lube magically appears in your bedside table, or how your ass always tastes like caramel.”</p>
<p>“My what now?”</p>
<p>Cas grins. “Lets just say that next time it might be wise to shower first and lay off the grilled cheese beforehand.”</p>
<p>Dean flops back onto his pillow with a groan. He tries to sound unbothered, but his voice breaks a little when he speaks. </p>
<p>“It’s getting harder and harder to know what’s real.”</p>
<p>“And I’ll reiterate: we are. We’re real, Dean. I promise you that. And you are more than the sum of your parts. You’re Dean Winchester. You and your brother? Frankly, God doesn’t stand a chance.”</p>
<p>Dean snorts and Cas shushes him.</p>
<p>“Go to sleep, Dean.” He rolls into Dean’s side and snakes his arm across Dean’s chest. Shushes him again when Dean tries to speak. “I think you’ll find <em> normal </em>humans need a few more than four hours a night.”</p>
<p>Dean relaxes into the warm weight wrapped around him. Cas snuffles against his neck, gentle breath tickling him. And for the first time all day, Dean smiles.</p>
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